Frequently Asked Questions

General

Buzzword is an exciting online game of knowledge and recall from NAQT, the leading provider of quiz bowl questions. Buzzword will challenge the depth and breadth of your knowledge in an engaging, audio-based format and let you compare your results with those of players at your level from around the world.

Yes! Buzzword is designed to be fun for everyone who enjoys knowledge and learning, regardless of quiz bowl experience. It’s available at several difficulty levels. Try a sample game—we bet you’ll like it!

It depends on how old they are. Due to U.S. federal regulations, Buzzword is limited to players who are at least 13 years old. We are unable to make exceptions to this policy, but if your child is too young now, Buzzword will make a great 13th birthday present!

Registration and Levels

Yes! In seasonal play, you can register for Buzzword any time before the week’s game ends. That means Sunday is the last day to register for (and play) Level A, Monday is the last day to register for Level B, and Tuesday is the last day to register for Level C.

You can play any number of weeks during the season. Your season ranking is based on your five best weekly performances, so if you miss a week or two that’s fine, and even if you miss more than three weeks, you’re still very welcome to play however many you want.

If you’re not sure how many weeks you want to play, it’s fine to register for some weeks of a season, then later come back and register for more. (However, the discount for registering for an entire season is only available if you register for the whole season at once.)

In this case, you won’t be able to give an answer to that question. While we understand this may be frustrating, maintaining the time limit to answer each question is important to ensuring that all players have as equal a chance at the questions as possible.

Briefly, if you think something might plausibly be considered cheating, it’s cheating.

While we have made reasonable technical efforts and policies to protect against cheating, we accept that we cannot absolutely guarantee the security of an online competition. Fundamentally, we need to trust players, and players need to trust each other, to play responsibly. Cheating isn’t impressive and it isn’t fun.

NAQT considers any intentional, active effort to obtain any form of help or assistance in answering a question to be cheating. This includes—but is not limited to—any sort of Internet search while playing, giving answers to or receiving answers from any other person, looking up any information while playing, receiving live assistance from another person while playing, and attempting to manipulate Buzzword technology in any way that confers an advantage.

NAQT reserves the right to investigate and ban players for cheating, abusive behavior, excessive protesting, or other malicious actions. Bans may extend to in-person NAQT events, including (but not necessarily limited to) national championships. NAQT may pursue additional remedies such as notifying coaches, school administrations, or other authorities of relevant cases of cheating.

Please review the Ethics and Conduct section of the Official NAQT Rules. While not all the rules on that page apply to Buzzword, that section does apply (notwithstanding its reference to teams).

If you believe that inappropriate conduct has occurred with respect to Buzzword, please let us know at buzzword@naqt.com.

Last names are usually sufficient, unless they are ambiguous within the domain of the question. (For example, “Johnson” would not be sufficient for a question on U.S. presidents.)

Obvious typos will generally be tolerated unless they create ambiguity within the domain of the question. (For example, if a question is asking for Henry VI, the answer “Hnery VI” would be acceptable, but “Henry VIi” would not be.)

Capitalization does not matter.

The NAQT Correctness Guidelines apply, except aspects that do not make sense for a game in which players answer by typing rather than speaking.